The less said about this section the better. Firstly, it was beastly hot and humid. Secondly, it was partly through an Industrial park. And thirdly, REASONS (which I will not go into). But I did cross both Route 9 and the Mass Pike, so this is for sure the southern arc of the trail.

Sudbury Reservoir

The first part was sort of promising… it was along a fire road which basically followed the southern shore of the Sudbury Reservoir. It didn’t come especially close to the water, but you caught glimpses here and there.

Um, Really?

Then there was a lot of road walking. Eventually you come to a spot which, well, I’ll let the guide talk here…

Note: above route between Rte 30 and Lamb Hill Rd has a poison ivy problem that volunteers are trying to remedy.

I’ll say this: there was little to no poison ivy, so I’d say the volunteers were successful here. There was, however, a massive Japanese knotweed problem, and a “where the f*** is the trail???” problem. I mean, if you scuffed up the duff, you could kind of see old asphalt underneath, but there was certainly no “trail” here to speak of. I just followed the track on the Open Hiking Map, and trusted it would take me where I was supposed to go.

Staples Fitness Trail

Japanese knotweed trail was followed by some more road walking and some pretty dicey intersections. Then the BCT headed into the grounds of a vacant office building in an office park. It was altogether pretty weird, but eventually you come to the Staples Fitness Trail. Suddenly it’s all wide, level, and stone-dust-covered. And almost as quickly, the nice trail ends in a little cul de sac loop, and you’re back to almost but not quite bushwacking through the woods.

Crossing the Mass Pike

Then more road walking. And there you are, crossing the Mass Pike. And more road walking. At this point, because REASONS, I was really looking for shortcuts, and if you study the track below, you will see I found a couple. Next week, I promise, I will revisit some parts of the trail that I cut short.